House Vision 2

Comprising twelve projects and some other few small interventions, the second edition of “House Vision” offered a domestic exploration for a near-future scenario.

In his book Designing Design (Lars Muller Publishers, 2007) Japanese designer Kenya Hara introduces some of the ideas of Konosuke Matsushita, a successful industrialist and entrepreneur who after WWII surpassed his competitors anticipating that “the next era will belong to design”. From this point of history, standardization and mass production in Japan evolved rapidly, fueled by a blind faith for technology and innovation. The private sector would see the emergence of a new ruling class of empowered private companies that until today continue reshaping the way people live.

Only a few weeks ago, a remarkable exhibition about housing ended in Odaiba, an artificial island in the Tokyo Bay. Precisely directed by Kenya Hara for second occasion, House Vision 2 was the continuation of a formula presented in its first edition three years ago, bringing together private companies interests in collaboration with ideas of some of the most acknowledged Japanese architects in the scene.

Comprising twelve projects and some other few small interventions, the domestic explorations were planned for a near-future scenario. Each company developed a specific idea related to their product or service along with the vision and design of one chosen architect who tackled issues of higher social and environmental order in the Japanese agenda. There were recurrent and overlapped topics, mainly related to new technologies, assemblability and materiality, as well as spatial performance and reinforcement of local communities.

Architect Kengo Kuma was in charge of the exhibition design, creating for the access a wall-like structure by weaving lumber squares rhythmically. Given the short length of the event and the need for quick construction, most of the houses favored the use of wood and were presented rather like small pavilions organized consecutively by number around a walkway. Many of the projects were also planned to have a second real life and transported to other locations after the event.

The first house, by a company whose business is related mainly to transport logistics, teamed with product designer Fumie Shibata to envision new possibilities of delivering. Their proposal was an exposed refrigerator accessible from the outside, extending the network of delivery services not only from door to door but from fridge to fridge.

The Yoshino-sugi Cedar House was collaboration of online e-commerce marketplace Airbnb and architect Go Hasegawa, combining the features of a small communal space in the first floor and a room for rental on the second. The house is not only a simple and sensible piece of architecture but an attempt to revitalize the community of Yoshino in Nara Prefecture, using local materials and returning to its place for use after the exhibition.

The third project by architect Yuko Nagayama and a major electronics manufacturer aimed to create “a house based on wealth of experiences”. Containing the space with a simple spiral wall in reminiscence to the Japanese language hiragana character “no”, it allows a continuous experience from outside to inside becoming a complete interactive surface. Being probably the most futuristic of all the projects presented in the show, the tent-like roofed structure is a nomadic prototype that could extend and facilitate the needs of the user with the immediate environment in the coming future.

Designed by household and consumer goods retailer Muji in collaboration with the architects of Atelier Bow-Wow, the fourth house is a compact structure constructed in wood. It was thought to be placed in the village of Kamanuma, some 70 kms south from Tokyo in the Boso Peninsula. While the ground floor is rather an open space (ryuten) with external shelves to store tools, the upper floor is more contained but leaving lift-up shutters to have 360-degree views of the agricultural landscape for an office space.

Nomad House is the result of the collaboration of one of the most popular group of department stores in Japan and architects of the firm Suppose Design leaded by Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida. The house is an exploration to rethink the needs of the nomads, individuals who constantly shift their work environments rather globally and without geographical constraints. Their proposal invites the visitor to think about what is prosperity in contemporary culture.

From all the houses presented, the tallest structure is the proposal undertaken by a developer and construction company along with architect Sou Fujimoto. Their Rental Space Tower stacks a series of volumes built with triplay wood, resembling cupboards that expand and collapse in order to minimize the private space and maximizing the shared areas.

The seventh house, designed by Shigeru ban in collaboration with one of the largest companies related to housing and living solutions is more grounded in the use of already existing products in the market. Their proposal revolves around the idea of a single condensed core containing all the water involved services. With great spatial flexibility the core allows several arranges according to the needs of the user. The house also introduces innovative constructive solutions such as PHP panels made with paper honeycombs sandwiched between plywood, an external membrane with zippers to secure the structure and wide glass windows fully retractable to open the inner space.

Not all the projects were intended to provide solutions for housing, but also to experiment with alternative solutions for comfortable shelter for the visitors, keeping in mind that some of these ideas could well be implemented as itinerant pavilions during the coming Olympics in Tokyo 2020. For instance, Kengo Kuma and plant hunter Seijun Nishihata proposed a water garden arranged under a checkerboard pattern. It allowed people to experience a controlled natural environment where they could also dip their feet into water and enjoy the materiality of the space. It was also notable the collaboration between a beverage manufacturer and Go Hasegawa, who also designed the Yoshino-sugi Cedar House described above, presenting a pavilion for resting and drinking coffee while enjoying the linen fabric on the ceiling waving with the breeze.

Other approaches like the Woodgrain House, a collaboration of a printing company and Kenya Hara’s leaded Hara Design Institute, pursued to experiment more with current printing technologies, capable to reproduce close to real textures with the hapticity of natural wood.

The tenth house, by architect Jun Igarashi and furniture designer Taiji Fujimori in collaboration with a company producing water-related products, was a spatial exploration to stress the idea of “living windows”. The result was a central curved space organizing programmatic apertures that served as elongated thresholds capable to allow specific domestic functions.

The two last projects go back to reconsider alternative uses for future technologies. The first of them a collaboration between a car maker and Kengo Kuma, optimizing the use of green energy generated by a hybrid car to plug tent structures. The other teamed by a culture infrastructure company and Hara Design Institute, considering wireless connection as the “virtual roof” where families are today interconnected.

It is undeniable the relevance of the private sector in the economic affluence of Japan, as much as the relevance of collaborative design will be for the coming Olympics in Tokyo 2020. It is also undeniable that corporative interests have fostered fierce rivalry and competitiveness among the others. There are still many gaps in the Japanese agenda that will only be filled once a common ground is set for all, where they can freely share some of their knowledge and apply it, as it was the case for this exhibition.

House Vision 2

Comprising twelve projects and some other few small interventions, the second edition of “House Vision” offered a domestic exploration for a near-future scenario.

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